


No Surgery Today

by Winklepicker



Category: Logan Lucky (2017), Never Let Me Go (2010)
Genre: Accidental kidnapping, Clydney, Gen, Kidnapping, M/M, Misunderstanding, Possible start of a romantic relationship, Rescue, Ryde, Ryde is better, Sad with a Happy Ending, Sort of? - Freeform, human cloning, kylux adjacent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 16:55:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14241726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winklepicker/pseuds/Winklepicker
Summary: Clyde Logan was to receive a hand transplant until he found out where the hand would come from. But instead of surgery he and Jimmy go on a rescue mission.





	No Surgery Today

“You ain’t ever heard about that? Not once?” Jimmy was sure Clyde was kidding around. Everyone knew about the program, the whole world knew. There were pioneer centres all over Europe, a few in Africa, debates on tv about cloning people to be raised and harvested. And now the FDA had approved trials right here at home, shipping in a few donors to start with before they considered initiating a local program. “Didn’t you read any of that stuff you had to sign? Don’t you watch the news?”

“Nope.” Clyde settled the little paper cup with his sedative on the nurses’ trolley beside his hospital bed. He did this the way he did most things, gentle and deliberate, like he wasn’t sure the world had room for him. He threw back the waffled hospital blanket far less tenderly and swung his bare legs over. Sat on the edge of the bed he hung his head and cradled the stump of his left arm.

Jimmy shook his head and took half a step toward him. “Come on, man. What are you doin?”

“You really think, after what you just told me, I’m gonna go ahead and have someone else’s arm attached knowin’ where it came from?” There was a quaver in Clyde’s voice, small and uncertain behind his curtain of hair.

“Where the hell did you think it was gonna come from? Besides, they don’t mind. It’s what they’ve been... you know.” Jimmy waggled his hand.

Clyde looked up, a frown creasing his forehead. “What? Bred for?” He shook his head and shrugged, waiting for an answer. “You think anyone asked them if they mind or not?" 

Jimmy was silent. He wet his lips and shook his head.

“Gimme my bag. I’m gonna ask them myself.”

“Ask? Clyde Logan, you get your butt back in that bed. This is your big chance.”

“Give me my bag.” Clyde stood, a little unsteady, and gave Jimmy his best glare. Its ferocity was somewhat dulled by the world-class pout. “I ain’t asking twice.”

They stood off, each daring the other to give in first but Clyde Logan is real good at being still. He’s superb at staying calm, a veritable champion at comfortable silences—Jimmy never stood a chance. He never could deny his baby brother.

“Fine,” he muttered under his breath. “You did just ask twice but fine.” He fetched Clyde’s bag from where he’d stashed it beneath one of the visitor chairs and handed it over. “And how exactly are you gonna find this guy?”

“Simple,” said Clyde, wriggling into his jeans. “You’re gonna use that Logan charm and find him for me.”

  

* * *

 

 

And Jimmy did. After some impressive flirting at the nurses’ station he had all the information they needed and should not have been given.

“You sure this is the guy?” Clyde peeked through the rectangle of glass on the door. The room lights were dimmed and the curtains drawn against the late morning light. All he could see was the outline of legs beneath a white blanket, the rest hidden behind a corner wall to the left.

“Room B406. That’s gotta be him.”

Clyde cracked the door open and stuck his head in, listening for any movement. “It’s clear,” he whispered. “Come on.”

They snuck in on the balls of their feet, crouched down low like a couple of inept burglars. Jimmy closed the door behind them.

Clyde stood straight and, with his back against the wall, peeked around the corner. Lying there in the bed was a pale sleeping form with a halo of red-gold hair fanned out on his pillow. He padded on soft feet to the trolley nearby and picked up a small paper cup. It was empty.

Jimmy unhooked the clipboard from the foot of the bed. “Donor 1205, ‘Rodney WM’.” They both looked at the sleeping man. “Says here he already donated a kidney a couple of months ago, and a lobe of liver. The hell’s a lobe?”

Clyde held up the empty cup. “He’s taken the meds,” he whispered. “Liver’s got four lobes. They’re, I don’t know, parts.”

“I never did pay attention in biology class.”

“You were busy checking out Callie Allsop’s biology if I recall.”

“What are you doing?” asked a soft drowsy voice. At the very same moment footsteps sounded in the corridor.

Jimmy limped to the door while Clyde turned to Rodney. His light brown eyes met a pair of watery green ones.

The person, the being, the soul who was Clyde stopped for a second. Though it felt more like minutes. The breathing thing, the thinking thing, the blinking thing—stopped. There was just green, and gold, and ivory, and a touch of rose pink. A patchwork of colours that swam in front of his eyes, coalesced into the most beautiful face he’d ever seen and then danced about again into a dizzying kaleidoscope. Maybe it was love, maybe it was having fasted for 12 hours. It took him a while to realise Jimmy was saying something. He broke his gaze and looked to the door.

“We should go.” Jimmy tipped his head toward the corridor.

Clyde looked back to Rodney whose face cracked into a wide slow smile.

“Hello,” he said, and gave a long slow blink.

“Cauliflower,” Clyde whispered.

Jimmy started, his body jerking halfway between getting the hell out of there and parsing what he thought he’d just heard.

“What did you just say?”

Clyde locked his eyes on Jimmy. “Cauw-lee-flau-err.” He turned back to Rodney who had shut his eyes, though a soft sweet smile still played on his lips.

“Hey there.” Clyde bent low over the bed.

Rodney’s eyes blinked slowly open, his smile widened in sedated bliss. “Are you my new carer?”

“Uh... you could say that. Sure.”

“They’re only taking a hand today.” Rodney rolled his head toward Clyde and closed his eyes again.

Clyde pressed his lips together, glanced at Jimmy in the doorway.

Jimmy shook his head, his eyes wide.

Clyde nodded.

Jimmy blew a breath out at the ceiling. “Boy, have you lost your damn mind? We are not doing this,” he hissed through gritted teeth.

“Actually, that’s been cancelled.” Clyde hovered his hand above Rodney’s head a moment before he committed to smoothing the silky strands back from a clammy forehead. Those green eyes cracked open again. “We’re here to, we’re… we’re gonna…”

Jimmy let the door close. With an exasperated sigh, he kicked off the brakes of a small hospital wheelchair in the corner of the room. “We’re transferring you to another facility, for your own safety.” He raised his eyebrows at Clyde. _Happy now?_ “And we have to go, like right now. Gotta beat all that traffic.”

“My own safety?” Rodney raised a delicate white hand to Clyde’s arm. It felt like being patted by a light breeze. “You’ll take care of me won’t you? Big strong fella like you.” His hand dropped and his eyes closed again.

 

* * *

 

They managed to wrestle Rodney’s floppy sedated body into the wheelchair without much trouble. Getting him out of the hospital was a different matter but with some clever weaving down corridors and the spot of emergency flirting at the nurses’ station again they got Rodney out and into Jimmy’s truck.

“No surgery today?” Rodney’s head lolled on the seat back. His words were slurred and his eyes closed.

Clyde stroked his hair. “Nope. No surgery today.” He looked up to see Jimmy putting away a look he couldn’t quite interpret.

“Get on back,” Jimmy said, walking around and climbing into the driver’s seat. “I’ll take him home and find us a way out of this mess.”

“What?” Clyde’s hand came to a still cupping Rodney’s shoulder, soft moist breaths from Rodney’s slack lips puffing over Clyde’s knuckles. “I’m not stayin’ here.”

“Yeah, you are,” said Jimmy. “How’s it gonna look if you disappear the same time your donor does? You gotta be right here when the shit show starts. Ain’t no use poutin’, this was your idea.”

Clyde nodded, silent. He mashed his lips together, eyes resting on Rodney.

“Clyde! Before they figure he’s missin’. I’ll see Mellie gets you tomorrow.” Jimmy started up the engine. “Now!” 

“Alright,” Clyde shot back. He adjusted the seatbelt at Rodney’s hip, then slammed the truck door shut. Before he could say anything else Jimmy’s tires were squealing away on the smooth concrete of the parking lot.

 

* * *

 

They let him stay overnight, on account of the sedative he’d taken—the sedative he’d quickly stashed into his coat pocket. Clyde had barely stripped off and got back into his hospital gown before a security guard and an orderly came in to check his room. They left on the orders of the nurse who had come to tell Clyde the news that his surgery wouldn’t be going ahead today.

By the time Mellie came to get him the next day, he hadn’t heard another thing. No buzz about an escaped patient, no questioning.

“There’s nothing in the news about him,” said Mellie leaning back on her Chevy.

“Maybe they don’t want ‘major Boston hospital security breach causes international incident’ as a headline.”

“ _Maybe_ you’ll get away with this after all.” Mellie tossed the keys to Clyde. “You’re drivin’. I been on the road near eight hours straight.”

Clyde squinted a moment as he thought. “It takes like twelve hours to get here, Mel.”

She waved this away with a flutter of her rainbowed nails. “That’s just a serving suggestion.”

 

* * *

 

 

Three hours in they stopped at a greasy diner for a late dinner and that’s when Mellie told Clyde what Jimmy did.

“What?”

“Well, where else was he gonna keep him? If the police come nosin’ around we’re the first ones they’ll come to? Ain’t no one sniffin’ around Aunt Maggie’s cabin.”

“He took him to Fayetteville?”

“What choice did he have?” Mellie picked at her fries. “We just need to lay low until whatever blows over blows over. It’s not like _you_ had a choice of leavin’ well alone.”

“You’re right, I didn’t.”

Mellie gave him a dark look and kicked his shin.

“What was that for?” Clyde yelped.

“That’s for not leavin’ well alone.”

Seven hours, a long nap and—once Mellie took the wheel again—four narrowly avoided speeding tickets later they neared the outskirts of Boone County, the sun barely hinting at coming over the horizon. Clyde rocked awake as they bumped over a graded dirt road and his head juddered on the cold window.

“We’re goin’ home?”

“Jimmy said he’d fix us breakfast, then he’ll drive you on down there. Some of us have gotta work.” Mellie stole a sideways look at her brother, watched him as he wormed a finger in to scratch under the cup of his prosthetic. “How’re you holdin’ up?”

Clyde stretched his chest and sat up straight. “I’m fine.” 

“Sure?”

“Sure.”

They drove on a while with only the sound of the Chevy’s suspension creaking over every ridge in the road before Mellie continued as though they hadn’t finished. “Well you were supposed to be wakin’ up with a brand new arm about now. All that preparation you had to go through, now all a sudden nothin’ happened.”

“I’m fine.” Clyde looked over at her, his small smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Really.”

Mellie nodded. They drove in silence a little longer before Clyde quietly said, “Thanks Mel.”

 

* * *

  

The house smelled of burnt toast and hot oil. Clyde contemplated the colour and curl of the bacon on his plate—exactly the way he liked it. He waited for Jimmy to join them at the table while Mellie shoved scrambled eggs into her mouth.

“There somethin’ you wanna tell me?” asked Clyde when Jimmy finally sat down with his own plate.

Jimmy cleared his throat and sat back in his chair. Mellie paused mid chew and glanced at Jimmy, then Clyde. She stood up, shoveled a couple more forkfuls into her mouth. “I gotta go. Thanks for breakfast.”

“Bye Mel.” Jimmy took a deep fortifying breath. He looked out the window, chewing on his lip before he turned back to Clyde.

“I may have—in a moment of panic and confusion—given him reason to believe we were kidnapping him.”

Clyde put his fork down and placed his right hand flat on the table, waiting for Jimmy to continue.

“We were on the I-79 and he just started screaming at me. Panicking. He didn’t know who I was, he didn’t know where he was. I tried to throw him off... my elbow must’ve caught him wrong. Knocked him out cold.”

Clyde pursed his lips, eyes on his plate.

“He tried to take the damn wheel.” Jimmy’s voice rose in defence. “We were doing 60, what was I supposed to do?”

Clyde took a deep breath through his nose, in, out.

“Anyway, I pulled over, checked on him. Made sure he was ok. And I...” Jimmy grimaced and sucked in a tight breath. “I duct taped his hands and feet.”

“What did you just say?” Clyde stood, almost knocking his chair backwards.

“Good thing I did too. He had some kind of tracker on his wrist. I cut that off faster than you can say John Denver.”

Clyde was staring at him open mouthed.

“I panicked okay, he’s fine now. It was just until he calmed down. Sit. Eat your breakfast and we’ll go get him.”

“I can’t think why but I seem to have lost my appetite,” Clyde said slowly and carefully. “Maybe”—his voice rose to a shout—“it had something to do with you saying you tied him up!”

 

* * *

  

The ride to the cabin was long enough to give the silence in the car depth, breadth, maybe even a little sentience. Jimmy gave up trying to break it. It seemed to him he was making things worse with every word. Clyde spent the entire ride staring our the window with his face set in the mode Mellie called ‘angry puppy’.

It was two hours later that they pulled up a winding dirt track into view of a small but neat cabin. Aunt Maggie had been doing it up for the better part of a decade. Her latest idea was to get it ready for AirBNB, though no one was entirely sure Aunt Maggie knew what AirBNB was.

As soon as they came to a stop, Clyde scooted himself out of the truck, slamming the passenger door shut. With that sound he was hit by a sudden realization. “Wait. You left him here on his own?”

“Yeah,”—Jimmy rounded the truck and started up the small porch—“about that.” He knocked on the door.

There was the sound of a chair sliding against the floor and footsteps coming toward them. The door opened to reveal Sam Bang blinking against the daylight, his backwards trucker hat not helping at all. He gawped dumbly at Jimmy, then at Clyde who gawped right back then tried to peer behind him.

Sam rubbed his eyes as though he’d just woken up. “Can I go home now?” He pointed a thumb over his shoulder. “This guy’s creeping me out.”

“Where is he?” Clyde pushed past Sam into the cabin. He didn’t get more than two strides before he stopped short.

There in the corner of the front room at the very end of a tatty floral sofa was Rodney, huddled with his knees to his chest in the same blanket they’d bundled him into from the hospital. A trembling ball of limbs and green eyes peeping out beneath a fall of gold-red hair.

Clyde approached him slowly side on and hunched, his bulk minimised. He sat down at the opposite end of the sofa and laid his hand between them. “Are you all right?”

Rodney stared.

“It’s Rodney, right? That’s what it said on your chart. In the hospital?”

Rodney stared.

“I just… I didn’t think it was right was all, what they were gonna do to you. In the hospital I mean.” He shuffled a little closer. “No one’s gonna hurt you, I promise.”

Rodney stared. Clyde held his right hand out, hoping Rodney would take it. Wanting Rodney to take it.

“I’m gonna take you home. We’ll get you fed something decent. You can shower, get yourself cleaned up, then we’ll help you figure out what you wanna do.”

“Everythin’ alright?” Jimmy poked his head around the door. Rodney curled tighter into the blanket and whimpered.

“Does it look like everythin’s alright?” Clyde hissed at Jimmy.

“He’s breathin’ ain’t he?”

“He’s scared to death is what he is." 

Jimmy had the decency to look away, ashamed. “Can I help?”

“Yeah, you can help,” said Clyde, shuffling a little closer to the huddled man. “We’re taking him home.”

“We can’t take him home. We’re the first place anyone with questions is gonna look.” 

Clyde stood up, his back rounded. “Fine.” He nodded. “You wanna help? Pack me a bag, some spare clothes for him.” He tossed his chin back toward Rodney. “Bring us supplies, some food.”

“I don’t wanna stay here no more,” Sam whined.

“No one’s asking you to,” Clyde snapped back.

Jimmy held a placating hand on Sam’s chest. “It’s fine. I’ll take you on home.” He turned back to Clyde. “You sure you’re gonna be okay up here?”

Clyde glanced over his shoulder at Rodney who’d buried his head inside the blanket with all the yelling. “We’ll be fine.”

 

* * *

 

  

The sun began to dip below the tree line leaving the dusty cabin with its half finished wiring in a twilit gloom until Clyde turned the generator on. All they had were the meagre supplies they’d hastily picked up in town, and Jimmy’s promise to be back in the morning with proper food and more gas. 

Clyde stamped his shoes on the welcome mat and shouldered his way back inside cradling a small pile of firewood. The generator outside was now puttering away and the cabin was bathed in weak light from the naked bulbs overhead. He elbowed the door shut then dumped the wood in the basket near the fireplace, brushing at the dirt and splinters that stuck to his prosthetic hand.

Rodney was still in his corner of the sofa. He watched Clyde move around the cabin, tidying the wood, wiping the small kitchen table free of dust. The other one, Jimmy, he was—what was the word?—intense. He’d apologized for knocking him out and tying him up, but Rodney’s head still hurt and his entire body was sore. His muscles so tense from fear every part of him ached. And Sam, he’d tried his best just to stay quiet and still.

But Clyde. There was a strange calm he’d brought with him when he’d arrived. He lumbered yet somehow made it look deliberate and graceful. He took up space, yet didn’t obtrude. Rodney couldn’t take his eyes off him. Granted the space was so small it was hard not to be looking at the only other person in the room but he’d managed it with Sam. And now, well now Clyde was standing right in front of him. Rodney pulled his focus away from the thighs at his eye level and craned his neck up the tower of Clyde

“You hungry?” Clyde asked, with a hopeful tilt of his eyebrows.

  

* * *

  

Clyde crouched low in his chair and slowly pushed a bowl of sugary cereal across the old formica table.

Rodney watched the bowl slide toward him. He stared at it like it was set to explode in his face, a lethal shrapnel of wheat-based rainbow-coloured confectionery.

"It's not much but Jimmy'll be back soon with supplies."

Rodney's fingers crept out of the blanket to pull the bowl closer. He risked a glance at Clyde. 

"Whh...t." His voice cracked into a whisper. He cleared his throat. “What happens now?”

It was the first time Clyde had heard him speak since the hospital, the hint of a lilting accent making itself known. “Well, uhh, Jimmy’ll be back with more supplies soon.”

“And then what?“

Clyde thought a moment and opted for the honest truth. “I did not think that far ahead.” He really hadn’t thought anything beyond _get him out_.

Rodney shook his head free of the blanket, a thin cloud of his fine hair stuck up with static. “I can’t say that sounds comforting.” He tipped his head at Clyde’s left. “You didn’t want a new hand?”

“Not this way. Besides, we’re not exactly a match.”

Rodney inspected his arms. “What were they thinking?” He shook his head and blinked up at Clyde with a shy smile.

“Crazy.” Clyde returned with a lopsided smile of his own.

Rodney took up the spoon, his smile dropped. Without looking up from the table he said slow and steady, "So what's going to happen to me?"

"Well, nothin'. Nothin’s goin' to happen that you don't want happenin'."

Rodney shook his head, his long red hair coming loose from the blanket and falling around his face. "They'll never let me go. It's not that easy."

"I'm sure you're right. But my brother’s got connections, you might say. And ain’t no one come asking questions yet." Clyde leaned his elbows on the table. "You're free now. And once Jimmy gets you a passport, some ID, you can go anywhere you want."

Clyde expected a happy response, maybe even gratitude, but Rodney’s soft open face contorted into a desperate scowl. “Go? Where? I don’t have money. I don’t have anything. Please don’t… I don’t know what to do.”

Clyde shook his head and held his palm out. “Oh. No no, I didn’t mean…”

“I want to go back, take me back.” Rodney’s scowl fell away leaving only his wide pleading eyes as his chest heaved for air.

Clyde took a beat, his heart sinking when he realised just how terrified Rodney was. Their rescue had turned to kidnap and now this. “I know I haven’t exactly earned your trust, none of us have.” He kept his eyes focused on the middle of the table. “It’s my fault you’re in this mess, so I sure as hell ain’t gonna abandon you. And you don’t have to do a thing, you don’t need to earn your keep if that’s why you’re frettin’.”

Clyde took a breath and worked up the courage to look Rodney in the eye again but he was staring down at his cereal, his face impassive. “If you ever want to leave I’ll help. Even if you wanna go back.” Clyde looked away again and fidgeted with the table’s aluminium edge. “I’d rather you don’t go back. Don’t let them use you like that.”

Rodney’s muscles slowly relaxed as Clyde ticked off each of his fears. He stole glances at this strange man who’d put aside his own gain and risked everything to save him. When Clyde finished talking and was busy worrying his lip, Rodney shrugged off the blanket and said, “Maybe I panicked a little. I thought, when you were talking about passports…”

Clyde whipped his gaze back to Rodney and shook his head. “You can stay with me forever if you want.” His face crinkled as he processed what he’d just said. “No. I mean. If you… you don’t have to… you can stay as long as you... Indefinite, is what I meant. I didn’t mean, you know… um.”

Rodney tried to chew his smile down without a lick of success. Clyde blushed and bowed his head, letting his long hair hide him from the world. Rodney’s smile turned into a grin. He brushed his own long hair back behind his ear, picked up his spoon, and shovelled the entire bowl of soggy cereal into his mouth in less than a minute.

At the rapid clinks of metal on china Clyde stole a peek and felt a rush of triumph when he saw the bowl was empty and a rush of many other feelings all at once at the glimpse of Rodney’s pink tongue licking the spoon clean. Clyde stood and took the bowl, breathing far more heavily than getting up from a chair warranted.

“More?” he asked hoarsely after Rodney took a final long lick and placed the spoon down.

Rodney grabbed at the edges of the blanket and pulled it back up around his shoulders. He looked up through his long pale lashes at Clyde and a bright smile spread over his face. He nodded, yes.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'd have notes here explaining this but I've no explanation. So there that is :)


End file.
